(A lift gate at Paradiski pictured this morning)
One French resort is claiming over two metres of snow has fallen on its slopes in the last week. However it remains a very mixed picture across the Alps with some areas still having received little or no snowfall since the current snowstorms started 10 days ago.
The big snowfalls have largely occurred above 1500m and particularly above 2000m with skiers complaining of rain to quite high levels at the weekend before another temperature dip in the last few days.
Ski areas below 2000m in Austria remain serious challenged for snow cover and even traditional resorts in France and Switzerland reporting big snowfalls up top seem to have accumulated very little down at resort level. And where the snowfall numbers are big, the avalanche danger is also very high, and skiers are being warned to stay on the piste.
The biggest snowfall figure claimed is 237cm – just over an inch off eight feet, above Chamonix in the French Alps, but whilst it is the first ski areas in Europe to claim a 3m accumulation for the 2015-16 ski season, it reports it only has 18cm (just over seven inches) of snow down at resort level. Most other areas in the western alps have reported 30-120cm (1-4 feet) of fresh snow in the last week.
Generally most leading ski areas in Western Austria, Italy, Switzerland and most of France has good upper snow cover now with purpose built altitude resorts often with 60-90cm, 2-3 feet of snow at resort base level too, but lower traditional resorts at 800-1200m altitude having thin cover down to resort.
Big snowfalls are expected to continue right across the Alps for at least another week with over a metre more snow forecast for many high areas that have already received a lot, and moderate falls of closer to 30cm for Austrian areas that need snow badly.